I'm entirely unsurprised by this, as others in this thread have also expressed.

I don't expect MS will disallow WLM clients to connect, they'll probably just cease development of it. I'm reasonably certain you can still connect to WLM using old clients at the moment, and since it's the Messenger back-end that handles the IMs for connected accounts, I don't see why WLM would stop working unless MS actively blocks it.

Below story TL;DR version: Personally I am okay with this change as I am already using Skype to IM both work and friends.

My story, at work we used to use WLM due to its persistent groups functionality. However, one of our team members was unable to join the WLM Groups due to using a Mac (WLM clients for Mac do not support WLM Groups), so on a whim after a fresh recruit wondered why we didn't use Skype, I proposed a trial period to see if Skype worked better.

Originally, we kinda missed the custom smilies functionality, but due to the fact that all our team members use multiple computers (and in some cases also phones/tablets) to keep up to date with support, it made sense to stick with Skype due to its persistent online logging feature. The fact that we could log in from any computer anywhere and see what we just typed on the desktop before we left proved to be invaluable. Took no time at all before everybody agreed that Skype was the best option for us.

As soon as I discovered the Skype Beta 5.11 that had WLM integration, I stopped using WLM. It was a pain to maintain two separate chat clients just to keep up to date with everyone.

Wonder if this means the various message dropping/online-but-offline issues will be copied across to Skype or if Microsoft will finally have a functioning chat program. Drove me nuts that since Messenger version 7 (I think) it couldn't reliably do the one thing it was meant to do.

This move doesn't entirely surprise me but i'm not completely sure how I feel about it. On the one hand the live messenger suite has became rather bloated and ugly over time but on the other the skype client has always been more unreliable for me. Hopefully Microsoft will fix those issues before carrying out this merger.

Personally, I hope everyone starts using Facebook for all communication (apart from face-to-face talk in real life, of course), even in the business world. I aim to start using Facebook for all of my communication and I'm already having my emails forwarded to the Facebook Messages section. Facebook Messages isn't quite good enough to replace email yet, but it's getting there. I think it would be pretty cool if everyone used Facebook for all communication, but then I am a huge fan of it

Personally, I hope everyone starts using Facebook for all communication (apart from face-to-face talk in real life, of course), even in the business world. I aim to start using Facebook for all of my communication and I'm already having my emails forwarded to the Facebook Messages section. Facebook Messages isn't quite good enough to replace email yet, but it's getting there. I think it would be pretty cool if everyone used Facebook for all communication, but then I am a huge fan of it

In corporate environments, there's a very strong reason why they prefer to keep business correspondence on mail servers under their own control. Facebook Messenger would be the next to last avenue to send over sensitive information!

As a substitute of texting it works fine, but we're then expecting everyone to have Facebook accounts when some people have valid reasons not to be on Facebook.

On topic, I'm fine with this decision. They ran the desktop client to hell since 2011. Ever since they kludged together contact management with what used to be Windows Live Spaces, and then opted to keep contact management on the web, something that used to be simple became an unnecessary headache. Not to mention the amount of alternative clients that broke and continue to break due to protocol changes.

Personally, I hope everyone starts using Facebook for all communication (apart from face-to-face talk in real life, of course), even in the business world. I aim to start using Facebook for all of my communication and I'm already having my emails forwarded to the Facebook Messages section. Facebook Messages isn't quite good enough to replace email yet, but it's getting there. I think it would be pretty cool if everyone used Facebook for all communication, but then I am a huge fan of it

I am being quite a bit optimistic especially as most businesses probably wouldn't agree with use of Facebook. I'd just like to see Facebook be used for all communication (as I don't mind sharing my Facebook profile with anyone in my company), but it probably has a long way to go, even for most people to consider using it instead of their current email service for personal email.

Personally, I hope everyone starts using Facebook for all communication (apart from face-to-face talk in real life, of course), even in the business world. I aim to start using Facebook for all of my communication and I'm already having my emails forwarded to the Facebook Messages section. Facebook Messages isn't quite good enough to replace email yet, but it's getting there. I think it would be pretty cool if everyone used Facebook for all communication, but then I am a huge fan of it

I hope not, I am getting annoyed having to keep disable facebook chat. I prefer Twitter to communicate to friends.